It may well be the case that the ongoing booing of Adam Goodes has gone beyond the pale of good sportsmanship and crowd decorum. But the saga says little about the state of race relations in Australia.

The central charge laid by the collective efforts of Australia’s race-baiting industry is that the fact that Adam Goodes is sometimes booed reveals an ugly racist impulse that is latent in Australian culture. It is one that deserves to be strenuously rejected.

Waleed Aly, a leading lobbyist of Australia’s race industry has said that it reveals that Australians are generally tolerant of minorities “until they demonstrate that they don’t know their place…the moment a person in a minority position acts as though they’re not a mere supplicant then we lose our minds… we say you need to get back in your box.”

David Rowe, an intellectual from the University of Western Sydney Agrees, claiming the reason behind the crowd treatment of Goodes is because “he won’t be a nice quiet Aboriginal boy who’s grateful to be a footballer.”

Colin Tatz of the Australian National University is of the same mind “We’re pretending that we’re one monolithic nation. But when one colour stands out from the crowd, it spills over into something very different.”

So let’s get this straight. Australians only like minorities who toe the line, know there place, and show appropriate deference to the bigoted white majority.

Since when did the revelry and rancour of fans at live football qualify as serious grounds to bemoan Australia’s lack of racial harmony?

This vision of Australian multiculturalism as a hierarchy whereby benighted minorities are held under the thumb of the white ruling class is both fashionable and well rehearsed. But is there a more nuanced explanation behind the Goodes saga other than every boo symbolising an endemic nationwide disdain for ‘disobedient’ minorities?

In truth, booing has always been a part of live sport. Jason Akermanis was routinely booed for his antics on the AFL field. Cricketers Steve Smith and Shane Warne have also weathered the hectoring of rowdy crowds. Tennis players Bernard Tomic and Nick Kyrgios have been on the receiving end of countless taunts and reprimands in the national media, many of which have been far more acerbic than the heckles of intemperate spectators.

Putting the merits of each of these incidents aside, they share a common feature: people perceived their behaviour as obnoxious, unsportsmanlike or arrogant. Not coincidentally, this is the type of behaviour that has long been shunned by Australian sporting culture.

Were some of the thousands of people who have booed Adam Goodes racially motivated? Quite possibly. But what of those who found Goodes’ on field spear throwing antics inflammatory? What of those who remain disappointed that after receiving the high honour of Australian of the year, felt Adam Goodes’ decided to deploy the divisive term ‘invasion day?’ What about those who in the animal high emotion of a live football game simply felt compelled to boo the bravado of an extremely talented player who had probably just scored a goal against their home team?

The view that the Adam Goodes’ controversy is more nuanced than blind racism is usually scoffed at by race-baiters, who seem to think white people can’t understand racism and therefore aren’t allowed an opinion on the subject. Enter Sydney Morning Herald columnist Peter FitzSimons:

“Like you and I,Alan, like Shane Warne and Jason Akermanis, Smith is part of a racial group in this country that does not have the first freaking clue what it is to be vilified for the colour of our skin alone, to be abused, belittled, marginalised.”

FitzSimon’s remarks only make sense if you believe that how indigenous people are treated will always have something to do with their nominal status as a benighted underclass, even if they are a well-paid, widely revered elite athlete. Indeed, only this can explain the culture of victimhood propagated by the race commentariat ever since Goodes was shamefully called an “ape” by a 13 year old girl two years ago. FitzSimons and his fellow ambassadors of the race industry have shown themselves incapable of looking at Goodes and his career from any angle other than his anointed status as a race-victim.

This revised history of Goodes’ career as a hard luck narrative of Australia’s ingrained racial prejudice is epitomised by the words of Daily Life columnist Jenny Noyles:“It seems that the only element of cultural difference Australians can agree to tolerate is food (as long as it’s not Halal) – all else must be erased and replaced with white, Christian Aussie values and practices.”

Noyles analysis stems from the same jaundiced mindset of the ‘#illridewithyou’ campaign, which earlier this year saw thousands of Australians offering a pre-emptive apology to Muslims over an imaginary racial backlash while people were being held hostage at gunpoint in the Lindt café.

It may be fashionable amongst intellectuals to use every available opportunity to heap scorn over Australia’s multicultural credentials. For those willing to step outside the race industry’s dichotomy of black victims and white racists however, the news is good.

When racism does rear its head in Australian society, the reproach is swift. The public reaction to the Goodes’ ape incident was one unanimous condemnation. The same is true of rare, but highly publicised of racial attacks on public transport. Unlike France, the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States, instances of racially motivated riots are extraordinarily infrequent. The numbers of protestors at recent reclaim Australia rallies – a group opposed to the edicts of Shariah law – were largely dwarfed by anti racism protestors, and condemned across the national media. The Cronulla Riots, perhaps the most prominent incident over the past several decades, is viewed as a shameful blight in our national history.

Considering one in four Australians was born overseas; more than double that of the United Kingdom and United States, the state of Australia’s racial harmony is enviable. This is not to say racism doesn’t exist in Australia. Instead, it is to point out that on the whole, Australia’s credentials as a multicultural society are more good than bad. And despite the cynical opportunism of professional race-baiters, the health of Australian multiculturalism is not something that can be accurately dissected by observing the tribal heckling of opposition players at a football game.

Dean Hamstead calls for Mike Baird to appoint a Minister for Deregulation & Elimination of Waste!

Today Mike Baird confirmed, by suggesting a GST increases, that Conservatives in NSW and Australia more generally are being forced in to voting for Labor or Labor-Lite.

“Yes, there’s more we can do, but efficiencies alone cannot be the answer,” Mr Baird says.

Thankfully Baird has an easy go-to to make up the difference. His answer? Make his state budget problems your house hold budget problems.

It’s hard to believe that just a week ago, Baird and co. were trumpeting their $2.1 billion surplus and $1billion in reduced spending. Further claiming that claiming that “revenue” (i.e. your tax dollars) is forecast to grow at 4.7% p.a.

Imagine a publicly listed company being so schizophrenic? Reporting record profits, then a week later issuing a profit warning. Such a board and CEO would surely not last long, with shareholders rightly looking to install someone more steady at the helm.

Naturally, Andrew Bolt calls him out: “I’d be more inclined to listen to Mike Baird if I heard him say the overall tax burden would fall, but this sounds too much like just another grab for even more taxes to underwrite massive social welfare spending”.

My answer? Stop wasting money on crap that the government has no need to be involved with, that includes crushing business with ever more regulations.

Business’s and households know that from time to time you have to go through the budget and work out what you can live without. Fighting the tendency of “nice to haves” becoming “can’t live withouts” is part of being a fiscally responsible and self sufficient adult.

Let’s contrast Mike Baird’s whining with Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who cut taxes six times including the largest income tax cut in the history of Louisiana. In the USA it’s a race between Conservative run states to get out of the way of people living their lives and running their businesses.

Why pick out Louisiana? Consider this quote from Incitec Pivot CEO, James Fazzino “The state of Louisiana is open for business. They continue to ring us every month and ask, ‘What else can we do’ because they are about employing ­people in Louisiana,”. Sad times when an Australian company looks elsewhere to invest $850million.

I imagine an Australia where our states compete with each other to bring business, jobs and people to their state. An Australia where new businesses thrive and people can hope for more than a retirement spent in line at Centrelink. Where Government facilitates rather than tolerate world class technology, mining and business services.

Dean Hamstead is a technology consultant for medium and large enterprise at ByteFoundry. He is also working to improve the use of campaign technology here in Australia.

The revelation that Speaker of the House Bronwyn Bishop used her MP travel entitlements to charter a $5 000 helicopter trip from Melbourne to Geelong has been rightly labelled excessive and unjustifiable.

However, Labor’s response to Bishops misstep smacks of hypocrisy. According to Bill Shorten, Bishop’s actions were “shameful” and “colossally arrogant.”

Perhaps. But if so, then what of Senator Helen Polley’s $26 000 bill chartering flights between Launceston and Hobart?

Polley claims her duties as a backbench Senator kept her so busy that economies of time required her to catch a plane instead of a car. But as Government whip Andrew Nikolic deftly pointed out, once time spent boarding and disembarking at either end and transport to and from the airport is factored in, the $26 000 exercise could only have saved Polley less than an hour.

Shorten accused Bishop of ‘wafting around above our heads in taxpayer-funded helicopters’ while at the same time ‘cutting the incomes of vulnerable Australians.’

But when we filter past Shorten’s class warfare invective, are the cases of time-poor Polley and toffee-nosed Bishop really that different?

Labor’s finance spokesman Tony Burke has emphatically demanded that if Bishop signed off on the trip knowing she was attending a party fundraiser, she should resign.

If we apply Burke’s exhortations to his own side however, where does that leave shadow Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, who just a few years ago billed two nights at a luxury ski resort to the Commonwealth credit card?

As a respected Queens Counsel and former first law officer of the Commonwealth, what justification did Dreyfus have for leaving longsuffering taxpayers to foot the bill for his winter getaway?

Even the Greens; the self-styled torchbearers of virtue and integrity in Australian politics cannot claim to be sin free when it comes to using entitlements to indulge on the public purse. Senator Larissa Waters spent more than any other Queensland state or federal MP refurbishing her plush electorate office in the inner city suburb of Paddington, including outdoor patio and artificial turf. At a cost of $414 000, Waters the only MP to outspend Waters across the whole country was South Australian Senator Anne Ruston.

When discussing the rorting of politician’s entitlements, there is good reason for both sides of politics to tone down the grandstanding and asinine pot shots. That is because with busy schedules and vaguely drafted rules, MP’s from all parties have found themselves guilty of being a little heavy handed with the public purse.

Disaffection and distrust harboured by the public towards Australian politicians is already at an all-time high. This is not helped when every instance of overreach is shamelessly paraded by the opposition as proof of the Government’s purported moral bankruptcy.

A better solution would be a clearer set of rules concerning entitlements to complement rigorous standards of transparency and disclosure. The mooted idea of an independent office tasked with approving all expenditures sounds promising, if somewhat impractical. But scapegoating Bishop is hypocrisy writ large.

As we know, the government has announced an inquiry into the decision to have Zaky Mallah on QnA.

A government review into the politics of a media organisation is never acceptable—and that is why we should not tolerate a taxpayer-funded broadcaster.

The controversy itself boils down to this: Mallah, reportedly an Islamist, appeared on the ABC’s “QnA” program to argue that he and others like him should not lose their citizenship merely by reason of a decision of a Minister. Liberal MP Steve Ciobo’s response was that Mallah should be stripped of his citizenship and the only reason he was not convicted of terrorism was that the anti-terrorism legislation was not retrospective. As it happens, Ciobo was wrong. Mallah was convicted of threatening ASIO officials but acquitted by a jury of certain terrorism offences. But in response, Mallah went further and claimed that the Minister’s ignorant comment “justified” support for ISIS amongst Muslims. Mallah is, by his own account, not a supporter of ISIS; he claims he only meant to say that the Minister’s comments were provocative. Perhaps the inaccuracy of Ciobo’s comments annoyed Mallah, but that is no excuse. And to make things worse, Mallah has been very rude about two journalists on his Twitter account. In fairness to the ABC, they weren’t aware of his rude remarks before the controversy over his appearance emerged.

As to the consequences of that mistake and the process of calling the ABC into account, I must say that what I fear far more than Mallah is the announcement of a government inquiry into QnA. Now, I freely concede that, in one sense, the ABC’s error has brought on this review. It is the government’s responsibility, after all, to ensure that the ABC operates in a balanced manner, in accordance with its statutory charter. But calling an inquiry, and effectively campaigning against QnA’s coverage of the debate, could well have a chilling effect on the reportage of the ABC. And if the government does attempt to “rebalance” the ABC by changing the ideological makeup of its board—as it likely will, given their current attitude—that will bring problems of its own.

Fundamentally, the problem with keeping the ABC accountable is that it is ultimately accountable to the government of the day. Within the context of the national security debate in particular, I fear what more “balanced” debate could bring with it. Should we hear more voices in favour of culling our liberties to implement a security state? How do we seriously propose to audit the ABC with a view to bringing about “balance”? How many pro-government voices should we have on the ABC? How many opposition voices? Half and half? Who gets to judge that figure and why? More to the point, how on earth can any person, let alone a journalist involved in current affairs reportage, be devoid of bias and opinion? Rebalancing the ABC to suit the needs of taxpayers is an impossibility.

Instead, the ABC should aim to please only one interest group: its viewers. If the ABC were accountable to consumers, not politicians, a government inquiry into its conduct would be irrelevant—unless, of course, it would attempt to regulate what the media could say or do by force, as the former Labor government attempted to. Mallah’s appearance would then lead to a drop in ratings and profits for the ABC–or it might lead to more viewers, depending on the quality of the show and the tastes and opinions of the viewing public. That is as it should be. “Hands off our ABC” is right—the ABC should be accountable to the public, not politicians. That’s why it needs to be privatised.

Vladimir Vinokurov is a solicitor and a deputy Victorian State director of the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance. The views expressed here are his own.

Would you ever give your money to another person to live on when they have their own money already? In fact they could have more money than you. Taxpayers’ money is being paid in the billions every year across Australia to pay for people who can afford to fund themselves.

A couple has $1 million in assets and has 10 to 15 years to live.

Do you:

require the couple to draw down $50 to $70 thousand per year from their own assets to fund themselves; or

require that the couple borrow $50 to $70 thousand per year from a Bank or loan provider and repay those funds at the end of their lives from the sale of the couples assets; or

pay the couple from your own assets $35,000 per year effectively providing the couple an interest free, non refundable annual gift so the couple has income; or

pay $20,000 per year from your own assets and require the couple to pay $20,000 per year towards their living expenses from their own funds.

Without seeking to insult your intelligence, the answer is clearly a) and the next best answer is b). Would you ever give money to someone who already has adequate money to fund themselves or has assets which provide the potential to repay you funds that may have been loaned to them.

Unfortunately, incredibly, ridiculously and insultingly, the reality is that that pension system is operating exactly as shown at answers c) and d).

Under options C & D, you – the taxpayer are providing a couple who clearly has assets to cover their living expenses with an interest free, non refundable gift over 10 to 15 years of $200,000 to $525,000. This amount will NEVER be repaid.]

The aged pension system is the most significant of the payments made within the Social Security and Welfare payments representing $50 billion of taxpayers’ funds and is projected to grow to $67 billion by 2018.

The pension was introduced in 1909 to support the elderly who were destitute who were over 65 when the life expectancy was 55.

Now over 100 years later the pension [or part pension] is paid to over 2.4 million people [85% of people over 65] and is described by the government as “basic income support for those Australians who are above retirement age but are not able to support themselves with their own means.”

It is no longer paid solely to the destitute but to the vast majority of elderly Australians. It is no longer basic income support as pension payments are paid far in excess of the level best described as basic income.

The vast majority of pensioners own their own homes. The median house price in Sydney is $900,000 and in Melbourne is $650,000. This would suggest on the face of it that a significant percentage of people in those cities receiving the pension have assets exceeding the lifetime pension and yet they seek to rely on the pension as their primary source of income. Despite their asset wealth they will never repay one cent of the pension received. Whilst pensioners own house does not produce income, it is a store of value from which funds can and should be repaid on sale.

2 simple examples demonstrate this atrocious use of taxpayers’ funds

EXAMPLE 1

A couple own their own home worth $1 million. They have no other assets. They receive $33,500 per year for 17 years totalling $569,500 [A pension starts at age 67. Life expectancy is 84 and increasing. A pension can be expected to be paid of 17 years and will continue to lengthen as medicine and technology increase life expectancy]

On passing and sale of their assets, no funds are ever repaid to the taxpayers.

EXAMPLE 2

A couple own their own home worth $600,000 and have $300,000 in savings/superannuation. They earn 6% per annum on their savings or $18,000 per year.

The government doesn’t worry about the actual income received by the couple in determining pension levels – they “deem” that the $300,000 generates $9,306 and ignore the actual income.

The government then decides that the $9,306 that this couple receives tax free from superannuation will only reduce the pension by $961 from $33,500 a year to $32,539 [The first $7,384 a pensioner couple earns does not reduce the pension level at all – and then it reduces by 50 cents for every dollar earnt].

Over 17 years this couple will take from taxpayers $553,163. This couple has an after tax income of $50,000 per year which is higher than the median family income in Australia.

No funds are ever repaid.

You must find this incredible. We collectively as taxpayers must be idiots for accepting this.

I am happy to open this paper to discussion, comment or criticism and would welcome you writing to me at pensiondisgrace@gmail.com. There must be something that can be done to correct this. Please do not say that you paid your taxes all your life so you are entitled to a pension. Taxes are not paid for that purpose.

The Liberals and the ALP have picked up on this sentiment and introduced new restrictions on foreign development, including fines for “illegally” purchased property and extra tax payable by foreigners on new developments.

Why we should blame foreigners for having the audacity to choose to live here is simply beyond me. That is especially so when they choose to purchase property and clearly have the means to work and contribute to our society .Rather than decrying foreign investment, we should welcome the opportunity for more people of all backgrounds to spend their money on our shores. The more money foreigners spend here, the wealthier we become.

In reality, the cause of the housing affordability crisis is simple: restrictions on property development are preventing people from constructing the homes they want to develop, live in and sell.

The impact of more development on local housing prices is often complained of, but this overlooks the extraordinary benefits that come with more development: lower commercial and retail rent, lower retail and construction costs, and other savings that are passed on to consumers and intending homeowners. Simply put, life gets much cheaper if people live more closely together. That is, after all, why people congregate in cities and towns: for ready access to jobs and affordable accommodation.

With reportedly over 100,000 homeless people in Australia as result of dangerously overinflated land prices, relaxed zoning restrictions could not come any sooner. Nor should we be forgiving towards the politicians who have misled so many Australians into believing that our zoning restrictions are necessary, or that foreign property development is an evil to be decried.

Vladimir Vinokurov is a solicitor and a deputy Victorian State director of the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance. The views expressed here are his own.

Alabama’s state Senate has passed a bill that will end the need for government sanctioned marriage licenses, leaving it to individuals and civil society to decide what marriage is. After July 1st—if the bill becomes law—couples will only be required to lodge a contract with the authorities to keep a legal record of the marriage.

Critics have accused Senator Greg Albritton, the bill’s sponsor, of trying to stifle the move towards marriage equality, an accusation he denies:

“When you invite the state into those matters of personal or religious import, it creates difficulties… Early [in the] twentieth century, if you go back and look and try to find marriage licenses for your grandparents or great grandparents, you won’t find it. What you will find instead is where people have come in and recorded when a marriage has occurred.”

Regardless of his motivations, Albritton makes a valid point.

When the state monopolises the right to define marriage and excludes certain citizens, political conflict is inevitable.

Proponents of same-sex marriage feel that same-sex couples are victims of state-mandated discrimination. Conversely, opponents believe that marriage is a sacred institution, primarily for the purpose of procreation, that cannot—or should not—be tinkered with to cater to people with a non-traditional lifestyle.

Government intervention in the institution of marriage is a relatively recent phenomenon. It has created friction in society and inevitably results in a zero-sum game: whoever wins the debate will force the other side to abide by their values. By invading the private lives of its citizens in this manner, the government facilitates a cultural clash that undermines social cohesion and creates political turmoil.

By abolishing the requirement for government approved marriage licenses, the Alabama Senate is moving to placate anxieties on both sides of the debate.

Ousting the government from the personal lives of its citizens means that same-sex couples will no longer feel marginalised by government, whilst opponents can maintain their traditional conception of marriage without fear of top-down changes to the definition.

The issue of same-sex marriage needn’t be a zero-sum game, nor does it need to be a political one. The Alabama Senate has recognised that if it uses its power to define marriage, the policy tug-of-war will be unending. Its solution to the acrimonious dispute is to deregulate the institution of marriage. This allows people the freedom to choose the type of marriage they want, leaving the decision to recognise it up to civil society.

Whether there is a right or wrong answer to the same-sex marriage debate is beside the point. The issue is about the legitimacy and social harm of allowing the government to enforce a particular view on society and invade our personal lives.

Damion Otto is a student at the University of Western Australia and a Liberal Party member.

For daring to apply evidence to public policy, Bjørn Lomborg was hounded out of our universities.

What have we become?

Academic freedom is at the heart of any university. To expose students to new ideas, to teach them to think critically, to challenge accepted wisdom – this is what a university should be about. And it is this fundamental principle that is now in grave danger.

By giving in to a few shrill online protests, the University of Western Australia has admitted that it is a closed shop. That it is shut to ideas. That challenging the accepted left-orthodoxy is not permitted.

Is this what we want our education system to be? Run not by evidence or ideas, but by what the mob wants?

I think we are better than this. I want our universities to be world-class. But that means we need to take a stand now.

This is why I am calling on you to join our campaign in support of academic freedom: We need to send a loud message that can not be ignored- academic Censorship will NOT be tolerated!

Yesterday Mark Latham published an opinion piece for the AFR entitled ‘Rise and Rise of the Right-Leftie’. It was a critique of left wing economic policies infecting the right wing of the ALP: “While one expects the party’s Socialist Left to be soft on spending, this problem has also infected Labor’s Right faction” wrote a disappointed Latham, who reminisced about the late ALP ‘free-marketeer’ Mr Peter Walsh. It got me thinking about the Liberal Party recently and the Abbott Government’s seemingly unrelenting pursuit of becoming, as the IPA’s Chris Berg observed, a Fraser Government ‘Mark II’.

Abbott and Hockey came in with a wrecking ball in the 2014 budget but failed to sell any of their budget measures to reduce Australia’s ‘debt and deficit disaster’ bequeathed to it by the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. Instead of reducing the debt, Hockey and Abbott increased spending and added new taxes, culminating in this year’s budget which even the ABC described as ‘almost Keynesian’. What happened to the so-called right ‘conservative’ faction of the Liberal Party? Have they been squeezed out by (heaven forbid) Liberal ‘Moderates’ and ‘pragmatists’ (I call them Leftie-Conservatives).

It’s no stretch of political jargon to label Abbott a Moderate: he’s happy to tax and spend but at the same time he wants to reduce the deficit. He’s eagerly pushing to recognise Aborigines in the Constitution by 2017 but is ‘not enthusiastic’ about recognising gay marriage in the Marriage Act. He says he is becoming a supporter of Federalism, but keeps shtum when WA demands he re-examine the unfair GST distribution which subsidises mediocre economies like Tasmania and Victoria. He said he was a ‘fervent supporter of free speech’ but decided to abandon repealing s. 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act because the ‘time wasn’t right’ – whatever that means.

The media-savvy and domineering personalities of arch-Moderates like Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop have formed the centre-piece of the modern Liberal Party front bench. Bishop has wisely kept out of domestic disputes and has focused all her energy overseas in her role as Foreign Minister, scoring goals left, right, and (mainly) centre in dealing with the MH17 and MH370 tragedies, the ANZAC memorials, and the Bali executions, leaving Abbott and Hockey to cop most of the unrelenting flak from the media.

Turnbull is the consummate politician, who could have his own daily variety show on ABC if he so chose (although he kind of already does with ‘QnA’). But he’s also a Moderate with some very fundamental Catholic beliefs, which makes him all the more mysterious. He recently distanced himself from Hockey’s language about ‘double dipping’ mothers, saying that it was important for government to look after working and stay-at-home mothers – this is directly in accordance with his Catholic beliefs which put priority on protecting and nurturing the family far higher than crony capitalism. He also came out last week again to push for 18C reform, something most moderates have been reticent to do since Moderate-in-Chief of the Senate, George Brandis, totally botched the selling of the reforms to the public. But here again we have not just the consummate politician, but the consummate Moderate: Turnbull supports same-sex marriage but wants more government assistance to mum-and-dad families, one view is patently anti-Catholic and progressive, while the other is entirely Catholic traditionalist. Turnbull is a staunch Republican and small ‘l’ liberal who wants to run a tight economic ship and reduce the deficit, but simultaneously wants to penalise businesses with an ETS or some other carbon taxation scheme. A conundrum inside a conundrum, just like Abbott.

What happened to people on the Right who spoke their minds and were consistent with most of their conservative ideologies? Well:

Eric Abetz has been lumped with the employment portfolio and seems to have been told to ‘fly under the radar’;

Cory Bernardi has been abused as a bigot and racist, and rendered irrelevant by the powers that be within the PM’s office (Bernardi has even been accused of being a closeted homosexual by Liberal MP and Moderate Warren Entsch);

Kevin Andrews has been dumped into the Defence portfolio (where Minister careers go to die, as was the case with Stephen Smith under Rudd);

The talented Brett Mason was made a parliamentary secretary in 2013 and then sidelined completely in 2014 (eventually leading to his retirement this year); and

Former Howard stalwarts like Ian McDonald have been booted off the front bench permanently and into obscurity (or some occasional Senate committee).

Some hope remains however, with talented MPs such as Dean Smith, Scott Morrison, Mitch Fifield, Christian Porter and James McGrath still waiting in the wings for potential front-bench positions in the future. Yet at the current trajectory, the ‘right’ of the Liberal party is being dragged more and more into a Moderate hybrid, i.e. what I call Leftie-conservatism, and the issue is not so much one of personnel but rather of consistent convictions and ideology within Cabinet.

Some Moderate Liberal pundits will argue that ‘pragmatism’ is the only way to win elections in politics and might even defend Tony Abbott’s record so far as being ‘pragmatic’ with a hostile Senate. I say that is utter hogwash. The electorate respects politicians with convictions, and societies in general are, inherently, conservative not radical or progressive and don’t need to be duped into voting for you. Yes, compromise is a great tool, especially when negotiating with the crossbenchers, but negotiation requires movement around the edges, not compromise of core values. If the Senate consistently blocks policies which form the basis of your core values, the only solution is a double dissolution. Abbott demanded Gillard take the carbon tax issue to a double dissolution, but was too scared to take his important budget measures in 2014 – including university fee deregulation – to one himself. Why? Because he probably thought he would lose, which just proves a deep lack of conviction.

Moderates might point to the unheralded success of the Moderate David Cameron in the UK recently and say: ‘Aha! It works’. The reality is different however, with multiple factors leading to Cameron’s re-election (chief of which being the incompetence of Ed Milliband as well as the dire SNP threat). His Leftie-Conservatism with his pro-EU pandering, his climate change propaganda, his absurd obsession with legalising gay marriage, and his weak stance on immigration, in coalition with the Lib-Dems, alienated his Conservative base and many questioned whether the Tories were Conservative at all anymore and not simply a gaggle of opportunists.

Now go back to Churchill for example, who – although an opportunist and a poor strategist – was never shy about taking his often unpopular views to the electorate – and winning. Look at Margaret Thatcher, who knew her ‘dry’ Tory government would be subjected to scorn and disdain from unions, working Britons, and left-wing university students, but allowed none of those groups to deter her from liberalising and improving the UK economy. Look at John Howard, whose own personal polling was always a bit ropey as preferred PM, but always took his Conservative views to the electorate, and was always validated, lasting four consecutive terms without any backflipping or sidestepping of his core values. The idea that being a ‘fusionist’ or ‘pragmatic moderate’ who makes his decisions on the basis of poll numbers each month is somehow an effective way to serenade the public into voting for you is utter rubbish and such a mentality needs to end, before it festers in (and destroys) the Conservative elements of the Liberal Party. To paraphrase Latham’s words: ‘the implications of Leftie-Conservatism for a future Abbott government are horrendous’.

Christopher Dowson works in government policy and legal areas and also holds an LLB/BA(Hons) and MA. He was co-founder of the WA current-affairs show The Oak Point on WestTV and is a member of the WA Liberal Party Policy Committee.

Leaders in the resource-industry have warned that unless Australia immediately reforms its economy, it is in serious danger of missing out on the benefits of the looming natural gas boom.

Politicians know- all-too-well that Australia’s resource boom is drawing to a close – it is the leading excuse they use to defend their budget deficits and fiscal mismanagement. However, it is not true that our resource-rich country has ran out of things to offer.

The second-wave of the liquid natural gas (LNG) boom is beginning to take hold globally. With its large stocks of natural gas Australia should be well-placed to benefit, as long as governments can properly respond to the challenges the industry faces.

Instead of complaining about how the declining price of iron ore impacts their budget deficits, governments need to dismantle the barriers to investment that they have created in the Australian marketplace.

At the Australian Petroleum and Exploration Association conference recently staged in Melbourne, Roy Krzywosinski, Chevron’s Australian managing director highlighted the impediments to the industry:

“Among the problems were too much regulation to get approvals, an inflexible industrial relations systems, high labour costs and taxes and government policies that don’t support investment”

These comments illustrate the clear need for reforms to make Australia more conducive to business investment if it is to avoid the “serious risk” of missing out on the benefits of the upcoming LNG boom.

Industrial relations regulation needs to be relaxed to allow a more dynamic workforce and tax incentives need to be extended to all job-creators in the economy, not just to small business.

There is more to lose than just the Abbott Government’s legacy if it stays on its current path as Fraser Government Mark II. With budgets going into the red all over the country, and political pressure to keep it that way, economic reform is urgently needed to ensure that Australia’s standard of living continues to be the world’s envy.

Abbott has claimed: “[T]he age of reform has not ended, it was merely interrupted.” But he is yet to put these words into action. If our governments fail to act, then Australia could miss out on the fruits of another resource boom. And we will all be poorer for it.

Damion Otto is a 3rd year university student at UWA Perth and a member of the Liberal Party.